The standup on dressing funny, stealing material from his nan and how a seven-minute set from Omid Djalili led to an obsession with comedyHow would you describe your style of comedy?Honest. Too honest. It’s got to the point where my family don’t want t…
Continue ReadingA Netflix standup show was ‘written by bots’. A TV writer has scripted joke software. And now artificial intelligence is taking on improvI’ve seen some bad comedy acts over the years – but not, until now, one that is part of an existential threat to hu…
Continue ReadingTheatre Royal, Drury LaneParks and Recreation actor is his own modest self in a show that has rugged charm in spades, from his rocking-chair-on-the-stoop delivery of stories to entertaining acoustic guitar songsRon Swanson is why everyone’s here – but …
Continue ReadingOld Fire Station, Oxford The Drag Race Down Under judge plays an amused, sometimes confused, observer of social foibles through an arch anthropological lensI’m all for standup that feels ahead of the curve. But what to make of Rhys Nicholson, who spend…
Continue ReadingBrighton CentreIn Settling Down, the standup promises more mature work to match his imminent parenthood but the material remains superficialA new comedian struggles to be born in Jack Whitehall’s new show, which itself heralds an imminent birth, that o…
Continue ReadingThe duo’s First Final UK Tour is more amusing than astonishing but demonstrates what drew them to the confounding craft in the first placePenn & Teller’s professional relationship is almost as old as I am. And yet I can remember a time – probably w…
Continue ReadingNineteen years since his first fringe solo show, the comedian returns to riff on punching melons – but this time with a hard-won happinessMy career was transformed when I repeatedly punched a melon with the face of Vernon Kay amateurishly scrawled on i…
Continue ReadingSoho theatre, LondonThe Indian standup’s Unalive show is stronger for its satire on her native country’s super-rich than its mild, middling musings on coronavirus A show of two halves, this one, from Indian standup Aditi Mittal, who rakes over Covid co…
Continue ReadingWhat’s it like to break into television in your 50s? The award-winning standup talks about her new series The Change, her late-blooming career and her issues with TupperwareThere is a photograph of Bridget Christie and her siblings, she says, taken in …
Continue ReadingThe Irish comedian on good gigs, bad gigs, her standup heroes and what makes a good soupHow did you get your start in standup?I did work experience at a radio station when I was in college. The breakfast DJ was Bernard O’Shea, a big comedian in Ireland…
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